


you're the rhythm that moves me

by ninemoons42



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ballroom Dancing, Character Study, F/M, Inspired By Tumblr, Inspired by Music, Introspection, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Tango, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 16:59:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11536509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Cassian Andor has no idea how he got here -- as in here, in this studio, half an hour before he goes out to try and win a ballroom dancing competition with Jyn Erso as his partner.On the other hand, he knows how he got here -- as in here, to the point where he's ready to risk his heart and his dancing skills with her.





	you're the rhythm that moves me

**Author's Note:**

> Best appreciated with this version of the Libertango: [Aram Gharabekian conducts the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_-cfWEMDrU).

He looks down at his hands and can’t seem to see them for the actual real things that they are: the calluses of pen and keyboard, the long-vanished ghosts of too many paper cuts, the occasional throb in the knuckles when he moves too quickly from the muggy hot streets to the biting bitter cold of the windowless room where his cluttered desk tries to breach the waves upon waves of outdated cables and too many piles of paper, still far too many when he’s supposed to be working in a paperless office. Red flush and rosy warmth just beneath the pale skin of his palms which almost never see the sun, and the minuscule tremble that comes and goes in his fingertips. 

Around his wrists the crisp bands of a brand-new dress shirt, still cool and creased against his arms and shoulders, the material crumpling at his waist where it’s tucked into a pair of freshly pressed trousers. Cufflinks winking up at him: ten circles stacked into a rhombus, gleaming in the harsh overhead lights of the room with all the mirrors. 

The mirrors that allow him to see himself as he is, just as he is, right now: his cuffs fastened closed but the top two buttons of his shirt unbuttoned -- he’d do them up again if he could, but he can’t -- he won’t -- he’s sort of not allowed to, not until this whole thing is over. Blue-steel cloth with faint picked-out lines in shimmering dark green thread, and the cuffs and the collar are an alarmingly bright white. Fine-checked trousers in shades of gray and black and faint seams in white. His shoes, when he glances apprehensively down, could almost reflect the pinch at the corners of his eyes: he’s uncomfortable and he knows it, he feels it from the very top of his head to his confined toes.

Tight line of his belt cinched around his waist. Tight sleeves. Even the tail into which his long hair has been scraped is pulled tight, elastic wound ruthlessly several times around and then covered by a length of dark green ribbon.

This isn’t him. This has never been him. He goes to work in fading white button-down shirts and worn gray suits. He goes to work in black ties that just hide the coffee and ink stains. He goes to work in canvas sneakers when he can get away with them, which is not very often, so he has to make do with down-at-the-heel brown loafers, the dead giveaway of someone who doesn’t have a lick of style -- or at least that is what his friends tell him. 

Friends who don’t even live in the same city that he does, but they’ve got access to the webcam on his laptop and he’s let them take a long look at the sorry state of his clothes closet and the handful of boxes into which he dumps his shoes, and they’ve long since proclaimed him to be hopeless, and he’s long since agreed.

But right now he’s dressed up and he almost swears he gleams under these lights, bright popping colors and his hair smoothed back, and his hands will not stop shaking -- his hands that have been scrubbed clean, that smell of milk and lavender.

When he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirrors, when he makes himself look at his own face, he does recognize his own face, but only barely. Not exactly a scowl on his face but something else: the fear and the elation, warring with an odd spark. 

If he could put words to it, he’d call it the idea of not wanting to disappoint himself.

Not wanting to disappoint her.

And there she is: as if thinking of her makes him see that she’s moving, beautiful tightly constrained movements, swaying right there in the corner. 

The tap of her shoes against the polished planks of the floor -- the graceful arch of her feet in gleaming pumps, her heels finely pointed and he still doesn’t know how she keeps her balance, even when he’s seen her glide and leap and, once or twice, nearly fall, when she’s running through her routines.

Her dress matches the blues and the greens of his shirt exactly, all ruffles and lace and the long elegant swirling line of her skirt in its gathers and its pleats, the hems like delicate froth just below her knees. No sleeves. Her arms are bare; her shoulders are bare. The sharp line of the bodice of her dress, startling contrast against her skin, pale cream studded with the innumerable darker points of the freckles that also march in a straight line over the bridge of her nose.

Like him, her hair is gathered away from the nape of her neck with a ribbon; unlike him, her hair is elegantly plaited into half a dozen finger-width braids first, falling from the back of her head.

Whether she’s wearing sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt, or a crisply tailored suit, or -- once -- something ornate and ostentatious with gold-braid accents and outsized epaulettes, something out of Old-World fairy tales of princesses and princes -- her eyes gleam all the same, sharp and fierce and -- as he catches her glance, now, in the mirrors before which she pirouettes in tight circles -- he finds himself falling into the steel of her, the compelling grace of her.

The dress has pockets: he feels himself gaping at her when she slips a tiny square of metal out of the material. The little square trails white cords. 

She doesn’t speak at all, only brandishes it in his direction, and although he feels very much like he wants to trip over his feet as he crosses the room, he goes to her, eager, shivering, nervous. 

Two sets of headphones plugged into a short jack. The jack goes into the side of the little square -- a personal media player, and she’s right there right in front of him, close enough to share breath and warmth and almost thought, and he pushes one set of headphones into his ears, watches her take the other.

Her finger on the Play button.

A blast of hard-edged beats, a threatening growl of a vocal line, and -- he knows these words, and he stares at her as she starts to mutter along, warlike and angry: _...his palms are sweaty / there’s vomit on his sweater already..._

Questions on the tip of his tongue, caught in the corners of his mouth. He never gets a chance to get them out, as the melody explodes in his ears and he can’t flinch away, he can’t stop himself, because the response is instantaneous, as he starts to nod along to the commanding bass-line.

“Good.” He doesn’t hear her say the word -- he _feels_ her say it, her low voice leaping to him in the vibrations of her approval, of her steely strength, and when her hands move towards his, he suddenly knows what to do:

One arm around the curve of her waist, pulling her flush against him, even as she’s stepping in, even as she’s suddenly far too close.

The other arm raises her hand joined with his to shoulder-height. Elbows raised to the correct angle.

And her free hand lands on his other shoulder --

The rapping falls into hard words and harder truths, but when he pivots to the right at the prod of her shoe against his, there’s nothing staccato about it at all. The movement is a sudden smooth pull of his body and hers, the two of them melding, just as they’d practiced over and over again, till their feet were sore, till they were almost sweating blood, till the tears stood out on his cheeks and the rage bristled in the pinch of her mouth --

He hears, in his head, not Eminem’s verses -- or rather not just the verses. He hears, in his head, the twirling interplay of cello and piano and violin, and the cry of something very like an accordion that breathes out the melody, that shapes it. He hears not the soundless glide of his feet tracing out complicated figures on the wood -- he hears the heels of his shoes striking against cobblestones and sidewalk, and the echoing click-click of her footsteps, as he leads and she follows.

As they dance, and as the tango fills him up to drive away the shiver of his nervousness, the nagging dull teeth of his thoughts.

He meets the eyes of the woman in his arms -- her mouth curves, now, into a blade of a smile, and that’s his signal: he shifts his grip on her hand and on her body, just a little, just enough. Now she’s winding her leg around his and half-turning from side to side; now she’s kicking and leaping, snatching the momentum for the seconds in which she’s in flight from the continuing turns and twirls of his feet and the figures of his part of the dance. Now she’s almost climbing him -- he can feel the hard shape of her knee pressing into his ribs, he can feel the line of her leg flexing just above his hip -- and now she’s almost spinning free of him, the only point of contact between them her left hand joined with his right -- the press of her fingers around his, little finger tapping on his skin and yes, they’ve discussed those cues, those signals.

She’s determined to save him from getting lost in the intricacies of the music.

He’s grateful to keep his end of the bargain.

A bargain, or perhaps it’s more properly a charade: because the traditional way to dance this tango involves the man leading the woman, but he’s too green and too unsure, too gawky. 

He’s more than grateful to relinquish the lead to her -- they only have to make it look like she’s following him, and that is something he’s learned to do, in these hours training with her, in these hours of the music looping around and around and around in his head, relentless, but more than enough to drown out the intrusive refrain of _notgoodenough neveramounttoanything_ \--

Some distant part of him registers that Eminem is no longer -- singing or rapping or whatever, that he’s no longer listening to “Lose Yourself” -- he’s too busy playing out to the ascending and ascending measures leading to the climax of Astor Piazzolla’s Libertango. He’s too busy bracing his feet and his knees to lift the woman in his arms -- she is compact muscle, she is compact grace -- and his hands don’t quite span her waist, his fingertips don’t quite meet in the small of her back, but he’s more than enough to push her off the ground, to hold her momentarily airborne, with her hands curved onto his shoulders, and her hair is flying about her face as he whirls her around, her skirts are fluttering against his knees --

Precipitous as the lift had been, the descent must be the opposite: slow and lingering, her body brushing completely against his as she comes back down to the ground, as he steadies her feet upon the floor.

She holds his eyes all throughout, or is it that he can’t take his eyes off her? And they’ve done this again and again and again: a month and change of rehearsals because outside of this room with the mirrors and the music that is only playing in his head and, perhaps, hers, is a competition of some kind -- a competition for which they’ll be wearing numbers on their backs, for which they’ll be examined and scrutinized by a panel of judges, and for what prize? A satin sash and a small nosegay of flowers, both for her. 

But that’s not the real thing that’s up for grabs.

As he understands it, it’s not him that’s under the microscope for this one. 

It’s her. 

This is a test of how she dances, yes, that goes without saying.

But this is also a test of how she teaches that dance: how she teaches the tango, one form of it, in the style that requires her to be dancing with a partner.

The real prize, for her, is one more piece of accreditation towards her dream -- the dream of opening her own dance studio.

And in the here and now, starting back into the routine without ever having to exchange any words, straight back to the opening pose while she catches her breath and presses in close again, he wonders again why she’s chosen him of all the people to dance with -- but he’s not paralyzed by the question, nor by all the possible answers.

He’s not paralyzed because he’s too consumed and too absorbed: the music in his mind and the movements of his body, the flex of his muscles and the pretense of leading her.

He looks at her again and her smile is still sharp, still ironic, but -- she’s all lit up, he thinks, all of her given over to the dance, and he can’t help but do the same. He can’t help but go where she leads him.

The lift, once again.

This time the music stops dead when he’s holding her at the peak.

This time there’s a bright shocking flush on her cheeks when she looks down at him, and her eyes are no longer glazed with concentration.

Her eyes are looking at him. Into him. Straight on and honest and wide wide open.

Oh, he thinks.

“Oh, he says,” she half-chuckles above him. She had heard him?

His arms tremble only a little. Is that exhilaration pounding in his veins now?

“Trust,” he says. “You trusted me enough to dance with you?”

She laughs, softly, and the lines crinkling in the corners of her eyes light her up with joy.

He puts her down as carefully and gently as he knows how to.

Gone the music in his headphones, gone the music in his head: there is just the harsh beat of the breaths leaving him, wildly out of sync with hers.

She’s so calm, so sweet, looking up at him from within the loose circle of his arms, his hands still at her waist.

“Why?” he asks.

“I can’t answer that,” she says. “I don’t have an answer to that. I don’t know why I trusted you. I don’t know why I was compelled to trust you.”

He opens his mouth again, thinking to apologize.

She beats him to the draw, as she always has. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong, let me tell you that now. We’ll not talk of this whole thing being anyone’s fault.”

“Your chances of getting what you want are better with literally anyone else,” he says. “Any other beginner.”

“That might be true, and it might not be,” she says, stepping away now.

He wants to mourn the loss of her presence, her warmth, the weight of her next to his skin.

She is continuing: “But you know, I was right, when I told you about the music. The music in your head.” She taps her own temple. “The rhythm in your head. You still march, but you’ve found a rhythm that suits you better now. A rhythm that makes you strong.”

“I -- yes,” he says, helplessly, because she’s right.

The dance has swept through him, has left his mind clear. Gone the fear and the panic. In their place is the peaceful ebb and flow of his thoughts, is the sweetly sharp awareness of her, just out of reach.

And there’s nothing to say but: “Thank you.”

That makes her laugh. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“Yes, that’s true,” he says. He gestures at the door. At what lies beyond the door. “But you’re unbeatable. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

“I know what I am and what I can do. And now I know what you can do,” she says. “All I ask of you is to show that thing you can do to -- everyone else.”

“That scares the shit out of me,” he says, because honesty is something that’s wound into the fibers and the sinews of him.

“Yes. There is a kind of fear that will kill -- no exceptions,” she says. “And there is a kind of fear that makes us feel alive. Get rid of one, and deal with the other. That’s all we can do.”

He thinks about it for a moment.

Waking up from a blackout at the office, mind and body fragmented by overwork and too many terrifying thoughts in his head. Hushed conversations with friends and a psychiatrist, and the whim that had taken hold of him until he’d found himself in this very room, getting ready to learn the basic steps and figures of the tango, with this woman as his teacher.

One kind of fear that had torn him apart.

The other kind of fear that had driven him to dance with her.

He nods. 

She smiles. “I’d hoped we’d get to this point. I wasn’t sure we’d even move from the starting point -- but yes, you’re right, I trusted you, and you also trusted me. So now we’re here.”

“Yes,” he says. “Here we are.”

“Here we are,” she says.

And then there is a knock on the door. “Cassian Andor,” the lanky man says, a fine sheen of sweat making his long dark hair curl into tight corkscrews. “Jyn Erso. You’re coming up soon -- they just called Solo and Organa.”

“Thank you, Bodhi,” Cassian hears Jyn say. “We’ll be right there.”

He watches her move.

And now she is standing by his side.

Now she is once again within his reach.

He sees her near shoulder twitch and he knows what she’s about to do: she’s about to offer him her hand.

So he holds on to her. 

“Ready?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer; he just moves forward. Stepping with head held high. Nodding at the gleam in Bodhi’s eyes. Out of the room, out the door, by her side.

When they’re announced over the PA system, when the lights blaze blindingly down upon them, he takes Jyn into his arms and waits, calmly, for the music to start.

And he says, “Ready when you are.”

She smiles, and he returns it, and her hand rises briefly to his face. Her thumb brushes briefly against the corner of his mouth.

He feels the brand of that touch, like bright fire, all throughout the dance.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Trust" at [@therebelcaptainnetwork](http://therebelcaptainnetwork.tumblr.com).
> 
> Look me up on tumblr at [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com)!


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